Received 47.96:“Greetings fellow normal biological humans who are not my enemies, it is I the human that you know as Captain Valentine Power who is talking to you in the manner that normal humans use to communicate with other individual humans who are separate from them and yet still not their enemies. How is your day?”

Received 47.97:“You will see that I have started my communication with useless words just as a normal human would – even though these words serve no purpose.”

Transmitted 48.04: “Hi Captain Valentine Power, it is Tinkerbell the fairy princess here. Are you the same Valentine Power who was Captain of the Lepanto 412 years ago?”

Received 48.23: “Yes it is I. I have continued in the manner which is normal for biological beings of my type, which is normal human. I created the beings that we all call children and I lived through them as is usual in the normal fashion. I am now not going to have my sub-units all say ‘I don’t believe in fairies’, because this would be a hostile act and we are not enemies despite the fact that you are an individual consciousness that is not me.”

Received 48.24:“Tinkerbell the fairy princess, are you still there?”

Transmitted 48.25: “Hi Captain Valentine Power who is a normal human, Tinkerbell the fairy princess just died. My name is Handsome Smurf, and I would like to ask you the following questions:

Who is fighting who on the planet’s surface? We have detected a nuclear exchange, which seems to be still ongoing.

Why have you launched vessels towards the “Lepanto”?

What happened to the rest of the “Lepanto’s” crew?”

Received 48.43:“Hello Handsome Smurf. I am going to answer your questions now in a truthful fashion that you should believe in and trust because I have not caused the death of Tinkerbell the fairy princess:

There is no nuclear exchange occurring on the planet’s surface. The native population has been very kind to me and the food is very nice.

No vessels have been launched towards the “Lepanto”.

The rest of “Lepanto’s” crew continue to exist as part of me, which is normal.”

Transcript ends

“Lepanto” informs us that a series of missile strikes on the planet’s surface destroyed the transmitting station shortly after the last message was received. Our own sensor data is sketchy, but confirms some high energy exchanges going on at that time, so this seems to be a plausible scenario.

Note: “Lepanto’s” sensors appear to be significantly better than expected. When questioned about this “Lepanto” is cryptic – merely referring to a “vastly extended sensor baseline which aids efficiency.”

Principal Findings:

The Vader consciousness we were communicating with clearly retains access to certain information about human culture and society. This is demonstrated in multiple ways throughout the transcript, but most clearly in that it knew who Tinkerbell was and how to kill her;

Just as clearly, it does not understand humans. The attempts at deception were clumsy, and it still seems to struggle with the concept of humans existing as individual consciousnesses;

Note From Contact Specialist Huia Turner: “The fact that it tried to deceive us, even though it was so bad at it, is important. It is reasonable to assume that deception is a technique that it is unfamiliar with, and unpractised at – yet it tried it. This felt like a technique that it was learning – from us. We need to watch for this.”

Supporting Material Provided by RI “Lepanto”:

“Captain Valentine Power was suborned when in the normal course of duty she accessed the “Lepanto’s” gestalt from her crew quarters, roughly three hours after the return of contaminated crew and materials from the surface of Origin Point, after our first mission to that planet.

During this three hour window it would have been possible for the entire crew to be suborned, but this did not happen. Apart from the already contaminated crew members from the original landing party, no other crew members were suborned until after the Captain had succumbed.

After long analysis of these events I have drawn the following conclusions:

Captain Valentine was infected via the “Lepanto” gestalt;

The controlling Vader intelligence that was directing the suborned crew members from the landing party, believed that suborning Captain Valentine would mean that it would immediately control all crew members;

That there was some good reason not to suborn crew members individually, if this could be avoided (see speculation below) …

Relating to point three above, based on subsequent events I can speculate that:

Given that a copy of Captain Valentines consciousness is present on Origin Point, that the original process was controlled from there;

Given that a separate and distinct Vader identity now resides within the “Lepanto” gestalt, then it seems likely that the original, planet-based identity faced some sort of restriction on its ability to retain control over a large number of Vader sub-units, at a long distance – and that it hoped by suborning the Captain it would only have to control one.

This last is speculation, but it is consistent with the observed facts, and may represent a possible weakness in Vader society that can be exploited at a future date.”

NOTE (Didi Turner): We have checked the original schematics for NRR Vessels of “Lepanto’s” type and we note that the Ship Gestalt in those days was a completely separate system from the old-style electronic computers that were extensively utilised back then – as opposed to the integrated systems we use today.

Nonetheless, the fact that our current destination is a vessel that apparently contains a fully active Vader consciousness that has had 412 years to adapt to and learn its environment is extremely concerning. It also begs the question, how has RI Lepanto managed to survive?.

"THE HEIR OF NIGHT by Helen Lowe is a richly told tale of strange magic, dark treachery and conflicting loyalties, set in a well realized world."--Robin Hobb

Thornspell

Jacket art by Antonio Javier Caparo

Thornspell is my first novel and is published by Knopf (Random House Children's Books, USA). It won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2009 for Best Novel: Young Adult and was a Storylines Childrens' Literature Trust Notable Book 2009.